How long will I go fast?

Is the kid in me racing against time or himself?

This isn’t a metaphor, but is it?

That half-paragraph comes from Seventy Times Seven: A True Story of Murder and Mercy, by Alex Mar. It’s an atom of a story much larger in scope, but I highlighted it for how it relates to something I think about often.

I’m not always in a hurry. I go out of my way not to be. But when I am, I can put it in gear. I can still run up the stairs. I can take a three-minute shower and throw my clothes on. I can scramble.

I can be Cool Papa Bell, the Negro League ballplayer whom Satchel Paige once said “was so fast he could flip the light switch and be in bed before the room got dark.”

Like other things about me, this goes on despite my age. Do you think I ever imagined myself running up a staircase at 55?